On its 100th birthday, the Boston Civic Symphony looks back and forward

Boston Globe

25-04-2025

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As an additional gesture of gratitude, Noya said, the orchestra is inviting the audience to sing along with collaborating ensemble Chorus Pro Musica (which is celebrating its 75th anniversary) during the 'Ode to Joy' chorus. Vocal scores are available on the orchestra's website.
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Noya, who has directed the Civic Symphony since the 2017 departure of longtime conductor Max Hobart, took interest in the job because the orchestra is 'an integral part of music history in Boston,' he said. 'One-hundred years. How many similar organizations last that long in the Boston area?'
The Civic Symphony still does include students, though rather than the high schoolers of the early days, the youngest members are now pre-professionals from local music schools such as NEC, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Longy School of Music.
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A handful of current and former players in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, including cellist Mickey Katz, violinist Sophie Wang, and violist Roberto Diaz (now president of Curtis Institute of Music), temporarily joined the ranks of the Civic Symphony during their student days. During the years between 1979 and 1992, when Hobart was both leading the Civic Symphony and performing in the BSO as a violinist, it sometimes happened that the conductor became professional colleagues with a musician he'd first met as a student in the Civic.
However, most of the musicians in the Civic are players who 'could have gone on to have a professional career, but chose to do something else,' Noya said. They're software engineers, or doctors, or teachers, or stay-at-home parents, while also being 'capital-M musicians.'
Musicians like Jan Steenbrugge, who played in the Civic under former music director Hobart while studying violin at Boston Conservatory around the turn of the millennium. After returning to his native Belgium, he shifted career paths to his family business, real estate. That left little time for music, but after he saw opportunities in the real estate field in Boston — a city he'd become fond of — he realized there was 'enough business to move the whole family' in 2011, and eagerly dusted off his violin and re-auditioned for the Civic.
'I suddenly had all my old friends from the orchestra back. It was like I never left,' he said. Hobart remembered him. Even his stand partner was the same.
Max Hobart, who also served as assistant concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, led the Boston Civic Symphony between 1979 and 2017.
Boston Civic Symphony
In the Civic, people do tend to 'stay for a long time,' said Katz, who has been a member of the BSO since 2004. When Katz
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One of those was Newburyport-based violinist Nancy Hayes, who has been a member for 45 years. She said she was driven to found her own community music school in Newburyport, The Musical Suite (now Zach Field Drums and Music) because of the positive experiences she had in the Civic. It was an antidote to her own childhood memories of intensely competitive and stressful music programs at the elite Juilliard School, where she didn't find the 'sense of wonderment and joy' she craved.
'Max had a way of encouraging musicians while also asking for disciplined practice, in order to get the most out of each player. That combination of inspiring and yet being really tough on learning was part of what I wanted to bring into my own school,' Hayes said. When Noya arrived, Hayes noticed a similar 'contagious positivity' in the Venezuela-born conductor.
Music director Francisco Noya conducts during a rehearsal of the the Boston Civic Symphony, which is commemorating the orchestra's 100th anniversary with a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 on Sunday, April 27.
Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe
In an interview, Hobart repeatedly expressed how proud he was of the ensemble. 'People just raved' about Civic performances, he said. The internationally respected conductors Kurt Masur, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Colin Davis all attended Civic concerts at his invitation when they were in town conducting the BSO, he said; afterward, though they concurred Hobart was a capable conductor, most of their praise was expressly for the musicians.
'They don't shy away from difficult repertoire, because they really want to be there, and they take the time to rehearse,' said Katz, a member of the BSO since 2004.
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Noya pointed out the 'amazing amount of dedication' he sees from the players. 'People come quite prepared to rehearsals,' he said. 'I'm always encouraging people to play with passion, especially our musicians that are not professional. I say, why are you here? You're here because you want to make music. So enjoy every second of it.'
The social aspect feels important as well for many of the musicians, especially the volunteers. 'Everybody knows: Monday nights, don't bother me,' Steenbrugge said. 'Monday night is orchestra night. That's my sacred space.' Especially in 'these really weird times, a lot can be said without saying anything when you get together and play music,' he said.
Noya would 'love to see' the orchestra endure into its second century and beyond, he said, 'continuing to provide high quality performances, and the opportunity for the citizens of Boston to make music at the highest possible level.'
Though Sunday's performance at Jordan Hall is the symphony's final date of the season in town, there's another community collaboration on the calendar. Noya splits his time between the Boston area and Nantucket, where his wife, Elizabeth Hallett, is superintendent of public schools. On June 22, the Civic will travel to Nantucket for the third year in a row, where Noya will lead a benefit concert for music education on the island, with student musicians from the schools and Nantucket Community Music Center joining the symphony on stage.
'In the end, we're all drawn together by our devotion to studying music,' said Hayes.
A.Z. Madonna can be reached at